SFist: Preservationist Battle Over Historic Longshoremen's Hall

signify

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:45:25 -0800

Actually, the Planning Department determined that the building was a resource but that it lacked integrity. The building has been gutted and significantly altered; it retains only the original parapet. No integrity, no resource. The environmental appeal was upheld by the Board for political reasons, not preservation reasons. This building is not eligible for the California Register.

markroquet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:10:25 -0800

thanks for writing all this. while i don't agree with you on everything, it's great to see someone so invested in their neighborhood and its history. i love that sailors union of the pacific building.

RinconHillSF

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:49:55 -0800

Seems like a plaque would do the trick (if the one on the corner sidewalk of The Embarcadero and Mission Street doesn't suffice) to note the historic significance of that spot. I'd like to note that the Rincon Hill Neighborhood Association has no dog in this fight ... if any "nearby residents" are indeed fighting it, I would suspect it is the folks living inside the building named Rincon Towers on Howard Street. As an aside, the stereotype of all rich people living in Rincon Hill is getting as old as all gay men are pedophiles (its all divisive bullshit). There a number of below market rate rentals in Rincon Tower, though the residents there have had to fight tooth and nail with the "building owner of the week" to keep it that way - they're no softies, the residents in Rincon Tower. The developer shouldn't have attempted to camouflage his building with LEED (which is becoming less and less meaningful and more cynical as developers propose LEED buildings based on points earned from providing exposure to air and sunlight for their new buildings while taking it away from the people living next door) in order to get the height exception on the waterfront. Height exceptions along the Embarcadero? That's a tough cookie - I think they should cap it at the current zoning height or just one or two stories above the Jewish Community Federation building next door, whichever is higher. Finally, the comments indicating there is nothing historic in the Rincon Hill neighborhood are just uninformed. I know Rincon HIll is a dangerous neighborhood for folks to walk around from a pedestrian safety point of view, but I really do wish people would take a walk west of The Embarcadero and between the Bay Bridge and Mission Street to see things with their own eyes before making uninformed remarks. Rincon Center along Mission between Spear and Steuart has some fascinating artifacts that were dug up in the lobby along with some interesting murals in the lobby. Take a walk up Lansing Street for some cobblestone from ages ago when Rincon Hill was the home of two U.S. Senators, most of the bankers, and other well-to-do folks with families. Wander east on Folsom to see Klochers Blacksmith Shop still operating - how many blacksmiths left in San Francisco? Look at Spear and Howard Street's SW corner to see the former headquarters of Folgers Coffee .... walk south on Spear Street for Hills Brothers Coffee's former headquarters, with a statue of their mascot, if you will, "The Taster" inside. Walk west along Harrison Street ... this is where the Sailors Hospital used sit along with many sailor and longshoremen related organizations, homes, and hangouts. On the corner of 1st and Harrison is the beautiful Sailors Union of the Pacific art deco building. While at 1st and Harrison, imagine for a moment that Rincon Hill was about 100 feet taller at 2nd Street than it is today, but industrialists cut the hill down (as a post on SFist from SparkleTack mentioned at the start of the year) in the late 1800s in order to make it easier to transport goods by horse-drawn cart from the docks at South Beach and China Basin up to Market Street - the first attack on Rincon Hill, followed up by the 1906 fires, and then the Bay Bridge/Transbay Terminal connector for the train that came across the Bay. I'm sure there's more, but I have to get back to my day job ... lots of neat buildings along Howard near 2nd Street ... anyway ... The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake hit the reset button for Rincon Hill (and the Ferry Building and waterfront in between, for that matter) when the Embarcadero freeways were torn down and made way for the possibility to redevelop the area. We've got a long way to go, and at least one discriminatory impediments on the RIncon Hill neighborhood in particular, the $14 per square foot SOMA Stabilization Fee, but I don't believe anyone should cast the folks who have decided to make Rincon Hill home should be cast as anti-development - develop it with a tip to livability, but please do develop it. Anyway ... hope the developer can compromise the building height ... and it seems like a plaque would make due for the historic significance .. but that's just my 2 cents.

markroquet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:32:05 -0800

oh wait

markroquet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:22:32 -0800

yeah there haven't been any new buildings here in forever! the skyline hasn't changed dramatically at all in the past five years. i'm glad my plan is working.

craeg

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:13:19 -0800

Right, because the presidio and the ferry building are equal in preservation worthiness to this building. People like you are stripping this city of its character by ensuring that nothing new gets built - which ensures insanely high home and land prices - which ensure that only baby boomer preservation fetishists are left to make sure nothing slips through the cracks and gets built. If you dont look at this town full of crumbling landmarked buildings and see that this preservation stuff is getting out of hand, then I dont know what hope lies for you. The harding theatre, the theatre in north beach, an abandoned church on nob hill, all rotting away because the buildings have no use in their current form - but have restrictions on development.

joshb

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:11:12 -0800

For real, markroquet What the hell is it to these people if the building is preserved... financial stake in the proposed new building?

markroquet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:59:50 -0800

anyway i should stop worrying. prop j passed, a majority of san franciscans don't seem to feel the way you do about tearing down historic buildings, and hopefully the process will work to keep this one intact. i do wish people would maybe make an attempt to understand s.f. history a little more - the idea that the '34 strike was some minor insignificant labor scuffle is wrong. but what can you do.

markroquet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:47:29 -0800

this building isn't "possibly historic." it is historic. i'm not sure why we can't agree on that. we should probably just go ahead and tear down the ferry building, the old mint, the civic center buildings, the presidio, everything near jackson square, since apparently, preserving those buildings is contrary to what you believe san francisco to be about. because you'e right, it really is preservationists who are stripping the city of its charachter. because that makes a lot of sense.

craeg

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:30:10 -0800

Yes, cry me a river. San Francisco is how old? Take a trip to Europe if you think SF has tons of history needing preservation. What I see as "stripping the character" of this city is people like Mark - who want every thing possibly historic preserved in amber so we fully become Six flags, San Francisco. Hey Mark.. Life goes on - things change - not everything can be controlled. Sorry that seems depressing and disappointing to you, but thats how life works.

markroquet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:53:48 -0800

geez. i think a lot of the comments here show what little understanding or appreciation we have of our city's history. this is perceved as a "nothing building" that maybe has "some history," but it's not worth saving because we can just have an exhibition at, ironically, another historic building that was once threatened by the redevelopment bulldozer. i hope this is not the way most san franciscans think, or we can look forward to block after block of nearly-identical condo towers in a city completely stripped of its charachter and history. the rich people need a place to live, and apparently that is more important. this depressing and dissapointing.

aj

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:36:36 -0800

we'd be living in a museum I think that's the idea.

pfeiffer

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:24:27 -0800

I work across the street from the building in question and I gotta tell you, SF would not be missing anything if this nothing building gets torn down. If we have to save every building where every historically significant event took place, we'd be living in a museum. This building wasn't exactly known as a historic building before the developers come on the scene.

bennyinsf

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:08:05 -0800

The building needs to be torn down. Whose views would be blocked by the new building? There's a post office behind the building that is one story tall. It doesn't have a view of the waterfront. The building that may be torn down may have some history, but is it important to save a building to commemorate an important event in history or should that event be commemorated through an exhibition maybe at the Old Mint Building once that's turned into a museum?

markroquet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:22:42 -0800

"It's not like it's in a beautiful historic district" That's not a reason not to preserve a historic building. And also, it is a historic district, regardless of how many great buildings have been torn down for shiny condos and hotels. This is across the street from the great Rincon Hill post office building, down the street is the waterfront strike memorial, the ferry building is a block away. The waterfront strike doesn't get anywhere near as much attention as it deserves in our usual tourist-oriented narrative of san francisco history, but that doesn't mean we should be tearing down buildings that were involved in one of the central events in SF history. It's not like this is some obscure footnote of labor history - the 1934 strike had national significance. Like I said, shame on people if they're doing this for selfish reasons, but that doesn't mean there is not a compelling argument to save the building.

ZoeStreet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:03:00 -0800

Not to mention all the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane shows that went down here... Just sayin'.

aj

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:02:48 -0800

Keep in mind where this is - right by the Hotel Vitale and Boulevard, and next to lots of highrise condos and offices. It's not like it's in a beautiful historic district, and we know for a fact that ex-Sup. Peskin is all about the views, as shown by his involvement with Telegraph Hill Dwellers. I do enjoy the irony of expensive condo dwellers citing decades-ago labor disputes, as if they would ever walk a picket line themselves.

markroquet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:58:03 -0800

oops sorry!

markroquet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:56:06 -0800

if people are co-opting the idea of historic preservation to preserve their expensive views, shame on them, but that doesn't mean this building doesn't have significant historic value, and this building clearly has huge historic value. i can't afford to live anywhere near there, but i would hate to see another historic building demolished.

markroquet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:55:29 -0800

craeg

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:39:46 -0800

Welcome to San Francisco - where you can co-opt the democratic process to preserve your own views. You'll even get to conceal your intentions by challenging the EIR and using words like "light" and "air" and "shadows" If the building is over 20 years old, you can also claim that its historic - and lobbby your district supervisor to declare it as such. No town has as many legal ways to block new construction.